Indi

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter III THE NON-ARYANS THE oldest dwellers in India consisted of many tribes, who, in the absence of a race name of their own, are called the non-Aryans or aborigines. They have left no written records; indeed, the use of letters, or of any simplest hieroglyphics, was to them unknown. The sole works of...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter III THE NON-ARYANS THE oldest dwellers in India consisted of many tribes, who, in the absence of a race name of their own, are called the non-Aryans or aborigines. They have left no written records; indeed, the use of letters, or of any simplest hieroglyphics, was to them unknown. The sole works of their hands which have come down to us are rude stone circles, and the upright slabs and mounds beneath which, like the primitive peoples of Europe, they buried their dead. From the remains found in these tombs, we only discover that, at some far distant but unfixed period, they knew how to make round pots of hard thin earthenware, not inelegant in shape; that they fought with iron weapons and wore ornaments of copper and gold. Earlier remains prove, indeed, that these ancient tomb-builders formed only one link in a chain of primeval races. Before them, India was peopled by tribes unacquainted with metals, who hunted and warred with polished flint axes and other deftly wrought implements of stone, similar to those found in northern Europe. And even these were the successors of yet ruder beings, who have left their agate knives and rough flint weapons in the Narbada Valley. In front of this far- stretching background of the metal and stone ages, we see the so-called aborigines being beaten down by the newly-arrived Aryan race. The victorious Aryans from western or west-central Asia called the earlier tribes whom they found in India Dasyus, or enemies, and Dasas, or slaves. The Aryans entered India from the colder north, and prided themselves on their fair complexion. Their Sanskrit word for color (varna) came to mean race or caste. The old Aryan poets, who composed the Veda at least 3000 and perhaps 4000 years ago, praised their bright gods, who, slayi...